


Identity

by lachatblanche



Series: Dollhouse AU [26]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Consent Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachatblanche/pseuds/lachatblanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A piece of the puzzle falls into place, changing everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

‘Pizza’s here!’ Raven announced, striding cheerfully into the room and setting two large cardboard boxes down on the table. ‘You get everything set up?’

Erik glanced up from where he had been fiddling with the TV remote and nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, his mouth pulled upwards in a wry twist, ‘Although I still don’t know why we can’t watch anything that _I_ want.’

Raven’s eyes glinted at that and she smirked.

‘Because we’re in _my_ apartment,’ she said with a superior smile, ‘And because _you_ agreed to it.’

Erik snorted. Raven was something of an expert when it came to getting him to agree to things that he didn’t actually want to do. Really, it was almost embarrassing how quickly he had capitulated to her; all she had to do was widen her eyes and mention something about how Charles had been _so very fond_ of period dramas, and Erik had all but rolled over onto his back in ready compliance.

That was what Raven’s smug look of triumph seemed to indicate, at any rate.

Erik hadn’t been so very amenable at the beginning, though. Any and all attempts by Raven to spend more social time together had been rebuffed, sometimes politely but more often brusquely. Raven was not one to take no for an answer, however, and she’d made no secret about the fact that she strongly disapproved of Erik work-fuelled isolation. She had therefore – forcibly – instituted a rule that, at least once a week, Erik would set down whatever he was doing and go over to Raven’s apartment where they wouldn’t speak so much as a word about the Dollhouse for the entire evening. Erik had put up rather a lot of fuss at the start but his incessant snarling and grumbling had gradually decreased over time, until eventually he himself started arriving outside of Raven’s door once a week like clockwork, eliminating the need for Raven to march over and drag him out herself.

The first time Erik had turned up at her door, he hadn’t been able to wipe the smirk off of Raven’s face for _days_.

He smiled now at the thought and glanced over at his neighbour. Raven didn’t appear to notice his scrutiny, her eyes fixed firmly on the television screen as she slowly brought a slice of pizza up to her mouth. She was curled up on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her, looking for all the world like a happy and contented child, safe in the knowledge that she was amongst those who cared about her; that she was amongst family.

The thought was enough to make something clench inside Erik’s chest, and for a moment he was almost overwhelmed by the surge of fear and longing that welled up inside him. He swallowed, his mouth dry. Then he turned to look again at Raven cuddling close into the sofa, her eyes wide and her mouth open as she watched the television screen, and the knot in his chest immediately relaxed and he found himself smiling slightly, abruptly calm once more. 

He could get used to this, Erik thought dazedly. Having Raven there beside him. Having a friend around to just – _be_ with. He actually wanted this, he realised. Now that he knew what it felt like – he wanted it.

Even as he was contemplating this strange feeling of warmth inside him, the phone at his hip buzzed, startling him out of his reverie. Raven glanced up at the sound, her concentration broken, and Erik sent her a grimace of apology before standing up, retrieving his phone from his pocket, and walking towards the kitchen where he answered it.

‘Lehnsherr,’ he said calmly, trying to hide his annoyance at being so unexpectedly disturbed.

The next moment, however, he jerked straight upright, his irritation from seconds before completely forgotten.

‘What?’ he demanded, tightening his grip on the phone, ‘You are sure of this?’

There was silence from the other room, the chatter from the television suddenly halted.

‘Yes,’ Erik said after a moment. ‘Yes, do that. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Call everybody in, tell them it’s urgent.’

With that, Erik hung up. He held on to his phone for a moment, just staring at it. His mind felt blank but his heart was going a mile a minute, as if it had grasped what his brain had not. It took him almost a minute to calm himself, to get his breathing back to normal. Then, slowly, he lowered his phone down and, his motions calm and deliberate, he slid it back into his trouser pocket. When he looked up again, Raven was standing by the door, watching him.

‘So,’ she said. Her expression was closed-off and her arms were folded tight over her chest. Her eyes, however, were glinting with suppressed eagerness.

‘So,’ Erik repeated, meeting her eyes.

There was a pause.

‘Well, _get on with it_!’ Raven all but snapped, unable to restrain herself, and Erik could now see that her hands were shaking slightly. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

Erik didn’t answer immediately. He considered Raven for a moment before finally nodding and taking a deep breath. 

‘The station called,’ he said quietly, his eyes never leaving Raven’s. ‘It’s about the last name on the list. The one that our mysterious friend sent us.’ He paused at Raven’s sudden intake of breath before continuing. ‘The last person on there – we’ve found him. We’ve finally found Nathaniel Essex.’


	2. Chapter 2

Erik gritted his teeth and glared down at the floor of the vehicle, trying to ignore the four men seated around him.

He had made it to the police station with minutes to spare, his mind already focused on the job at hand. He would have arrived even earlier, but he had been delayed by Raven’s relentless questioning as she had tried to squeeze every last bit of information out of him. Her interrogation hadn’t been very effective – Erik couldn’t tell her what he himself didn’t know, after all – and this was something that he had repeated several times before Raven had eventually stormed off in a huff. The last that Erik had seen of her before he’d left the apartment was her setting herself down angrily in front of her laptop with an irritated scowl on her face. He had quickly left before he could be irrationally tempted to apologise for something that he had no damn reason to apologise for. 

Upon reaching the station, Erik had immediately been filled in on the Essex matter. The police analysts had finally managed to trace the last person on the list of names that Erik had received and it seemed that Nathaniel Essex was now, it appeared, the very respectable Nathan Kent, a well-regarded doctor at a local clinic. This last part had caused Erik to frown when he’d heard it; he had, after all, been working under the assumption that Essex had changed his name in order to escape from the Dollhouse. If that was true, then he couldn’t imagine any reason for why the doctor would have chosen to reside in the same city as the Dollhouse. This inconsistency nagged at him but he didn’t have long to consider it; his attention was immediately pulled away to different matters, and he soon forgot this one niggling thought.

It was over two hours later before the decision was made: Essex – or Young or whatever he had decided to call himself – needed to be brought in immediately, first for interrogation and then to be taken into protective custody. Whoever had murdered the other people on the list was still out there, after all, and Essex was too important to lose. He was their only link to the Dollhouse and Erik, for one, would be damned before he lost him too. Frankly, as far as he was concerned, even coming to this decision had taken far too long; if Erik had had his way, they’d have been kicking down Essex’s door the moment that they’d found out where he was. 

It couldn’t be helped, however, and after a quick assembling of a retrieval team, they had finally moved out, on their way to collect Essex with as little fuss as possible. So now Erik was here, sat in a tactical assault vehicle wedged in between four other members of the police task force assigned with bringing Essex in. Erik, as the lead detective on the case, was heading the force, something that simultaneously pleased and worried him. It was good to be in control, to be at the head of something that was so very important to him – and wouldn’t his superiors frown if they ever found out how emotionally compromised Erik was by this case – but if things went south then Erik knew who would get the blame. And what with the way things had been going so far, Erik wouldn’t be at all surprised if this one lead of theirs slipped out of his hands just like all the others.

He was going to try his damnedest to make sure that it didn’t, though.

Feeling the van slowing down, he quickly glanced down at his watch and grimaced. It had been hours since he had left Raven’s apartment and, despite the importance of his errand, he still felt vaguely guilty for abandoning Raven, especially without having given her any real tangible information about what he was doing or what was going to happen. If Erik had had his way, Essex would already be in their custody and he would have been home by now, giving Raven an update on their progress on the case. Instead, due to goddamned bureaucracy and police procedure, here they were hours later, on edge and still without Essex. Logically, Erik knew that the delay mattered little – the likelihood of the killer having the same window of opportunity as the police was next to none. If the killer had got to Essex then he would be dead; if he hadn’t, he would be alive. It didn’t stop Erik from wanting to act as quickly as possible, though.

The van came to a stop, jerking Erik out of his reverie. Looking up at the men around him, he gave them a quick nod.

‘This is a straightforward pick-up,’ he said shortly, ‘We do not expect Essex to be armed, but be on your guard nevertheless. Non-lethal rounds only, and even then only if absolutely necessary – we need Essex alive and willing to talk.’ He paused a moment to allow his words to sink in before giving the signal, and as one, he and his team moved out of the van.

There was silence as they entered the building, the door opening easily with the keys given to them by the building’s landlord. Essex’s apartment was on the top floor, they had been told, and he owned the entire floor, which actually made things easier for them. This way there were no nosey neighbours to watch out for and worry about.

Erik felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as they climbed the last flight of stairs. It had been some time since he had last led a tactical assault team like this, but Erik had lost none of his nerve in the time between. He glanced back at the four men behind him and mentally ran through his plan once more. He’d left one man at the bottom of the stairs and now he set another one at the top, just in case anyone from any of the lower floors decided to make their way up. Nodding at the two other men behind him, Erik silently led them towards Essex’s door, every nerve pulled taut as he did so. As he crept closer, however, something – the angle of the light, perhaps – made him hesitate, his heart suddenly thumping violently. He immediately held his fist up, causing the men behind him to pause. Slowly, cautiously, Erik began to make his way forward. As he approached the end of the dim corridor, he saw what it was that had caused his mental alarm bells to start ringing: the door to Essex’s apartment was ajar.

Erik swallowed. In all his time on the force, he had never once known a door left ajar to be a good thing. Chances were that what he was about to find inside the apartment would not be pretty.

Holding a palm up to his men, Erik slowly made his way forward until he was almost touching the door. He knew that he should have at least one man with him for the entry, but for some reason he felt that he needed to do this alone. He couldn’t help having the illogical, ridiculous feeling that whatever was waiting for him behind the door was for his eyes and for his eyes only.

Taking a deep breath, Erik grasped hold of his gun and, pushing the door open, walked inside.

And froze.

What Erik had been prepared for upon stepping into the room had been a body. A dead body with a lot of blood.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was for the murderer of said dead body to still be inside.

And what he definitely wasn’t prepared for, when the murderer turned around, bloody knife gripped between their fingers and teeth bared in violent, vicious hate, was for him to recognise the murderer, and recognise them immediately.

His gun slackened in his hand and he felt his body begin to shake. He watched, unmoving, as the murderer’s hate-filled gaze suddenly flickered, and recognition started to flood those wide, wild eyes.

The hand holding the blood-stained knife dropped down limply.

And, as horror started to enter those well-known, well-loved features, Erik opened his mouth and whispered one word.

‘… Raven?’


End file.
